Your Dirty Laundry

The scoop on dirty laundry

It’s Summer, and the heat is on in Austin. Many people vacation this time of year, and many will make the trek to Disney World. As the owner of Austin Linen Service, I am always thinking what’s happening behind the scenes of a successful business. So how about Disney World? What’s the scoop on Disney’s dirty laundry?

Where does the dirty laundry go?

Disney’s dirty linen gets done in a nondescript, two-story building that is roughly the size of a city block. The signage on the building reads, Laundry and Dry Cleaning. Half of the building is devoted to laundry on one side while the other half is dry cleaning.

Inside, the place has no resemblance to Disney World. There is no air-conditioning, most of the workers are immigrants and speak Spanish, and no one wears a uniform. It is a true industrial building.

The laundry side uses 40,000 cubic feet of natural gas a day and 350,000 gallons of water. It is likely one of the biggest laundry facilities in the country.

So while you are at Magic Kingdom, Epcot, or any of the theme parks, you can count on it that every towel, napkin, bed linen, tablecloth, bath mat, uniform or costume makes it’s way to this building owned by Ed Fox.

The laundry operation is full-service. The drivers pick up dirty laundry and return clean laundry to 260 locations at Disney on 13 pick-up routes.

Incoming laundry is whisked onto a conveyor belt which takes the laundry to a second-floor sorting room. It is sorted and then returns to the first-floor washing area through stainless-steel chutes that dump dirty linens directly into massive washing machines. The final result is closet sized carts filled with clean and pressed linens waiting to be trucked out.

According to Ed Fox, most of the Disney hotels, restaurants, and parks have no more than a four-day laundry supply. One little secret is the sheets you sleep on at the Grand Floridian may have last done duty at Port Orleans Resort. In other words, all lines at Disney are treated the same.